The export data have raised serious questions at a time when the major hospitals in the national capital and in various states have declared oxygen emergency.
Clarion India
NEW DELHI — At a time when the country is reeling under severe shortage of oxygen amid huge surge in the second wave of Covid, the oxygen exports from India doubled between April 2020 and January 2021, according to govt data.
The export in 2019-20 was 4,503 metric tonnes which has increased in 2020-21 to 9,300 metric tonnes of oxygen.
From January 2020, when India was exporting 352 metric tonnes of oxygen, the exports increased by a staggering 734 per cent in January 2021.
The country exported 2,193 metric tonnes of oxygen in December – a 308 per cent increase compared to 538 metric tonnes in December 2019.
The export data for February and March 2021 have not been made public yet.
The export data have raised serious questions at a time when the major hospitals in the national capital and in various states have declared oxygen emergency.
On Tuesday, Sir Gangaram Hospital in New Delhi had to send SOS to the government to save lives of the people amid acute shortage of oxygen.
Meanwhile, according to NDTV report, the Delhi High Court pulled up the Centre on its decision to ban oxygen for industrial use from tomorrow (April 22). “Why not do it today itself? Why wait for April 22? Lives are at stake. Are you going to tell patients to wait till April 22 for oxygen,” the court questioned.
“Economic interests can’t override human lives. Else we are heading for a disaster.”
The report says, the Centre had argued recently that private hospitals give excess oxygen to patients for “psychological purposes”, leading to misuse. All states including Delhi have been advised to rationalise the use of oxygen and not administer oxygen to patients who do not clinically need it, the Centre said.
India on Wednesday hit another record high of 2,95,041 new corona cases in the last 24 hours. The country’s overall Covid tally reached 1.56 crore, according to the health ministry’s data released on Wednesday.
Since April 15 India reported over 2 lakh new Covid-19 cases on a daily basis.
